Mount Fraught Syndrome
by InSearchOfPerfectMedia
Summary: summary inside. please read, review..
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I'm new here. Be nice?

Summary: Soon after the death of Count Olaf, the emigration of the Baudelaires off the island, the birth of Beatrice Baudelaire, and the supposed end of the series; a surviving member of Olaf's Acting Troupe is again brought into the endless maze of VFD membership when someone sends her "literary masterpiece" to a twelve year old boy working for both sides of the schism. Old pain, old memories, and old news bubble up into reality once again; bringing about a whole new world of questions. What was _actually_ contained in the Sugar Bowl? Who were the white faced women? And why hasn't Lemony Snicket written more about this series of unfortunate events?

_My dear August Applewhite, _

_I have reason to believe you are in possession of incriminating evidence to the ever feared Count Olaf. For a time now I myself have owned a great amount of information which I haven't made much sense of until I received a manuscript from an anonymous mailer. The envelope, entitled Black Things and an Unfinished Romance, had startling relevance to the current facts that are under my ownership. If I choose a meeting place would you be willing to confront me in order to combine our efforts for the truth? I assure you that my motives are purely sensible in all respects, as I am much a minor. And who ever heard of child capable of any wrongdoing? Please contact me as soon as possible, my sincerest gratitude will follow._

_Regards to your organization, _

_Gian Augusten Penelope _

_Dearest Gian Augusten Penelope, _

_Your letter was most convincing. I am indeed in possession of the knowledge you speak of, if only I knew where you've received your information I could believe you without such qualms that happen to have formed in the confines of my consciousness. My plan is as follows- Taken that you do actually exist, I have decided upon a meeting place where we can exchange such information. If you fail to meet me at my one and only request, I believe there is no real urgency to your cause and will therefore drop all contact. I must tell you that my life has consisted of a perilous line of inconceivable events, which I dearly hope will give me a reason to be blunt within response to your letter. I'm not exactly at liberty to tell you what I really think of you, but because I have absolutely nothing to fear from the child you say you are; I think you are a very sick old man who has gone into hiding for many years, leaving his loyal associates behind and is now playing a stupid joke on the people closest to him. But, alas, if you aren't who I think you are, I believe you could be of some service. My address, a flat in the depths of the city, is enclosed. Bring no one and I will give you more information than you've ever dreamed of in your entire life. Thursday, the 17th, 25 minutes after the 12th hour. _

_My regards to you and your colleagues,_

_August Applewhite _

Chapter 1- Past into Present

_January 17-_

_It's hard to take risks, even at the safest of times. Taking these letters and manuscripts into possession, wanting to find the parents I've always been told died at the instant of my birth, the parents I've wanted to meet and love like I've never loved before. _

_I myself had studied in the writing of letters for months before attempting to send one off to a woman who I've never even seen. Being only twelve years old, it was all I could do to try to sound precocious enough to convince a venerable associate like August Applewhite. _

_Because all I want, Diary, is to see my parents. _

_So wasn't using every opportunity what any determined person would decide? _

August Applewhite paced the room, her fingers running through her black hair with increasing anxiousness. Was the person visiting her this afternoon indeed the boy with all the answers? Was this the son she'd thought was dead?

Grief tore through her already damaged heart, squeezing it dry with anticipation. The truth was, she had no idea what to say to this boy. She wanted desperately to hold him in her arms and tell him that he would never go without parents again, but a part of her was afraid.

It was a strange fear, gripping her worse than the cantankerous grief she endured every day. It was a fear that she was being misled, an almost familiar anticipation that took refuge deep in the confines of her tired, effortless mind.

She glanced over at the files lying open on her desk. The Snicket File, a healthy stack of papers more than an inch thick. Every single murder, every crime, every truth that could possibly be known was contained in its many sheets, every single piece of evidence that had survived so much.

Years ago, her feared leader, an assassin, demanded she burn these documents, clearing her and her colleagues' names from any form of record possible.

But she had never been a destroyer of information. She had never thought of herself as a bad person, one to punish and kill innocent people.

She had never truly been a member of the other side of the schism.

August jumped. Someone was rapping, sharply, on her door.

The wait was over. Turning the door knob, she opened her last effort at justice.


	2. Chapter 2

He was a small boy, agitated and thin, standing with an adolescent posture. Freckles over his little boy nose, he stood in her doorway, holding a bundle of papers under his arm. And all August could do was smile at him, pain gripping her insides as she contorted the muscles of her lips.

"Gian Augusten, a pleasure to meet you," she forces out.

"August Applewhite," he says in his childish voice, tipping his cap. "The pleasure's all mine,"

And she invited him inside. There was no telling as to whom this boy really was, no real fact that this boy was indeed her son from beyond the grave. Disregarding all hopes that this was the key to a more important existence, that this could send her notorious associates to jail, she forced herself to keep in mind that it wasn't out of the possibility that this boy was someone's sick joke.

And she had been misled so many times; willingly giving her answers to people not capable of deserving her gratitude.

"Mrs. Applewhite?" The boy is asking, looking at her face with concern. "Where are your files?" He takes a seat at her desk.

"May I ask, Gian, how old are you?"

She looks him over again.

"Twelve, ma'am. I don't mean to be taciturn with all this, but I really need the files,"

"Only after you give me what you have,"

His eyes cloud with distress, she notices them. She wonders, for a moment, what kind of pressure this child must be under. For him to come to her for such information under urgency, it perplexes her.

"I don't really know if my files will be of much use," He says.

"What kind of files are they?"

"A memoir, ma'am. It seems to be some sort of diary,"

She almost gasps at the affirmation.

"A diary?"

"Yes, it's from a woman associated with an acting troupe. But the only identification she leaves is her codename."

"And her codename is Flo," Choosing her words carefully, she adds, "Tell me, do you have all six parts?"

"How did you know of the diary? Is it a famous document?"

Something seems to click in his brain, August can sense it. He doesn't trust her. Her own son doesn't trust her.

"Why are you under the possession of such documents?" she asks. "What reason does a child have doing the work of an adult VFD associate?"

Gian Augusten turns slowly in the desk chair, his face losing its clarity. "I'm trying to find my parents. And I'm stopping at nothing,"

And how she had desperately, at that moment, wanted to tell him the entire story; pouring out everything that had happened in her miserable life.

"That diary is a highly confidential document. It was originally sent to a Snicket with the hopes of publication to a handful of important people."

"So it _is_ of significant value?"

"It is, very."

"Then you've read it before?"

But August is left speechless again. A pain deep in her inner being is urging her to pour the truth out of her mind, to give this child the right to his real parents, but she stops herself. What good will any of her actions bring her?

"I haven't," she falsely confesses, looking at her feet.

She takes the stack of papers he's opened on the desk, flipping through them.

"_She must love me. I know she loves me. _

_It's just the constant doubt that's always coming up to tear at my heart, this certain guilty aura around her that glows in this darkness…."_

August gasps. When did she write such words? Such revealing things only you yourself should keep sacred? But then she notices. Every name, every place, every accusation has been blackened out.

"Isn't it a shame?" Augusten is saying, as if reading her mind. "I was hoping you could tell me the missing information. I'm aware that you did work with these people before retiring,"

"I did," she admits, reading through the rest of the document. "I see that part six is missing,"

"It's disappointing, really," he says, "to get to the end without a conclusion,"

She smiles at him. "It's more of a story than a file, don't you think?"

But he doesn't answer. Looking around her room cautiously, he rises from her chair, taking the papers from her.

"Did you—did you…" he stumbles over each word, staring intently into her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I have such a—a strange feeling about all of this,"

"It's a lot to take in, I know,"

She pities him. She pities her child, standing before her trying to be so mature. And then she notices. A tear, one small insignificant glisten in the corner of his eye; is staring back at her.

"What is it?" She asks him. "What's wrong, Augusten?"

And he lets her hold him, his small body folding perfectly into the arms of his mother. "I can't do anything right, Mrs. Applewhite," he's crying. "I'll _never_ find them,"

"That's not true, my darling," she whispers, kissing the top of his head. "You're so close to your parents now, it would be foolish to give up,"

"But I'll never survive this world of _smoke_ and _mirrors_ and—all these things that never make any sense,"

"I know, Augusten, I know how it feels,"

They sit, slowly, August still holding him.

"The truth is," she begins, words wanting to come through her lips like welcomed vomit, "I _know_ who your parents are,"

"You can't know. No one knows. It was never documented,"

"But _I_ do," She half demands, fighting the instinct to keep her heart Stoic and her face full of expression.

That, she thought, was the only pitfall of being such a talented actress. To be able to feel such emotions that didn't belong to her. And to succumb to acting when it would save her from emotions that were just too overwhelming, well, this was the reason she would _have_ to fall back on. Because August didn't want to feel what she was feeling.

She was embarrassed this child had such a glorified view of his parents, and she was even more mortified with herself.

"If you're supposed to know who my parents are, then why don't you just tell me?" he stares intently at the window as he breaks out of her arms. "I've spent enough time here now. I deserve the information that was promised to me,"

"But the thing is," she turns from him slowly, lighting a cigarette, "you're not supposed to know that information,"

"Why not?"

"It would be the very fact that would incriminate me," she forces out slowly, fighting the sudden urge to cry.

Everything, she thought, _everything _in her life had led up to this very moment. When the sum of her vehemence for the Troupe finally took its toll. She was tired of lying, of providing more and more smoke and mirrors until nothing real was left for people to decipher. She was tired of telling things that had never happened to her, clinging to a fake sister, her dead parents, a fire that took away every file she had had the courage to write.

But most of all, there was the dreadful ache that was impossible to extinguish, lying so deep in her heart that it stayed dormant for weeks at a time, bubbling up at inconvenient times like these.

August still loved her. After all these useless years of running from the truth, she could finally say that she loved her.

"Are you saying that you're related to my mother?"

His question, so incredible and pure, hangs unanswered as she takes a long melancholy drag from her cigarette.

"Are you saying that you…that you know her?"

She smiles. "You could say that I _knew _her,"

"Then—" his eyes glisten slowly as he turns his head from the window. "Then you're saying she's _dead_?"

"She disappeared a long time ago, and no one knows how or why she left," She tries to make her smile disarming, but he sees her eyes cloud for only a moment as she stands. "Or why she took the Snicket file with her,"

"But I thought the infamous Count Olaf is in possession of The Snicket File,"

"Everyone thought that he was," August is saying. "But it was my plan to mislead him. And it was my plan as an associate to mislead everyone else,"

He turns to flip through the very file itself as she glances down at her desk.

Her diary, her complete record of her life. How incomplete she had left it. The two women, always so loyal, always so alluringly breathtaking; using their physical advantages to frustrate the Count's plans. The two alleged sisters, the twins with no resemblance using every possible loophole to avoid staying apart.

Switching out files, blacking out names, giving twisted stories and recording agitated sex with every possible media; this she never added.

How evil she had made herself seem in the diary. How ignorant and selfish, how conceited and arrogant a picture she had painted of herself.

An actress, an artist of the stage, madly and obsessively in love with a woman that had been so conveniently out of reach. Her family's disgrace, her own mother's nightmare; the object of desire for so long she wanted to break open her body and feed it to the maimed in a fervent, ritualistic ire.

How she had changed from writing petty romance and sending it off to Snickets and Kornbluths encased in blank manila envelopes, how her life had changed from an exhausting actor's schedule to quiet winters in city homes; to summers spent writing at the Hotel Huntington.

How I have changed. How my eyes are gathering wrinkles like lonely strings lacing my once perfect skin. How much my love for her has changed.

"What are you looking at?" Augusten is quick to grab the files lying on the desk, reaching past her wispy hair, brushing it softly with his hand. "Did you just try to tell me something?"

"I'm only saying that I was once associated with the Count. That I was once…"

"I _know_ what you're saying. And the people who sent me will be very interested in who you are,"

Reaching for his cap, he almost tries to leave, but she grabs his arm.

"Are you who I think you are?" they say at once, their eyes meeting in a way only possible within the loopholes of VFD.

"We will meet again, Mrs. Applewhite. But until then I have something I need to give you,"

Reaching into his coat pocket, he can't help but be overly professional. His confidants, his colleagues always demanding he not get involved in any way possible, his guardians persisting about his own personal agenda, fatally serious about his never ending search for the parents they knew were already dead.

And they had wanted him to give up.

"I have a letter for you from an old contact. I hope you won't think this meeting was an utter waste of time," he says softly.

"I'm sure it wasn't,"

And she lets him leave. She lets her own son leave her without any consolation for his determined searching.

"I'll send you a dispatch," she calls out after him, but the door slams shut and she's left in her office; the sun setting outside her windows.


End file.
